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The problem of trolls exemplifies the challenges of building democratic communities in the digital environment of social media. Distinguishing trolls from activists can be difficult; democratic theorists have yet to adequately address how to prevent the former while remaining open to the latter. In this article, I outline a theory of democratic politics that takes space as a central element in shaping democratic interactions. Using the work of John Dewey, I draw out two key characteristics of democratic space: boundedness and flexibility. Using these criteria, I then evaluate Kinja, Gawker Media's commenting platform, both before and after trolls attacked the site in 2014. I find that in altering its boundaries to successfully protect against trolls, Kinja introduced a new problem: a lack of flexibility that continues to affect the possibility for democratic discourse on the platform. I conclude by suggesting how this theory of democratic space might shape future research.

From its origins in the later nineteenth century, French rugby has been an important site for the construction of a variety of masculine, class-based, regional and national identities. The game's rise coincided with that of the popular press, and also with the emergence of specialised sporting publications at both the local and national levels. With a significant head-start on association football, particularly in the south-west of the country, rugby became associated with the defence of regional pride and local interests. This was a process invested in both morally and materially by newspapers and radio. With the advent of television, rugby was variously appropriated by national broadcasters and Gaullist politicians, who exploited its regional credentials at a time of rapid societal change. Since the game's professionalisation in 1995, and its resulting 'glocalisation', media-aware rugby entrepreneurs have sought new sporting and commercial strategies, which have ranged from provincial nostalgia to pragmatic cosmopolitanism.

At the heart of most academic and political debates regarding the future of the European Union lie three key ideas: openness and transparency; citizens' participation in the decision-making process; and democratic legitimacy. Scholars and EU policy-makers have advocated the use of new media, particularly the Internet, in the democratising process of the EU.This article focuses on the top-down aspect of the online European public dialogue and the opportunities that the EU's public communication strategy offers to citizens for involvement in shaping the Union's political nature.Following a 'multi-method' approach for the gathering of empirical data, the Internet's role in the EU's public communication strategy is examined here from four aspects: the European Commission's public communication policies (document analysis); the Commission's implementation of its online policies (website analysis); their impact on key Internet audiences (user survey); and the views of policy-makers (semi-structured interviews with senior Commission officials).

Ever since the World Health Organization gave the name COVID-19 to the coronavirus pneumonia disease, much of the world has been severely impact by the pandemic socially and economically. In this paper, the mathematical modeling and stability analyses in terms of the susceptible–exposed–infected–removed (SEIR) model with a nonlinear incidence rate, along with media interaction effects, are presented. The sliding mode control methodology is used to design a robust closed loop control of the epidemiological system, where the property of symmetry in the Lyapunov function plays a vital role in achieving the global asymptotic stability in the output. Two policies are considered: the first considers only the governmental interaction, the second considers only the vaccination policy. Numerical simulations of the control algorithms are then evaluated.

This book focuses on the social process of conflict news production and the emergence of public discourse on war and armed conflict. Its contributions combine qualitative and quantitative approaches through interview studies and computer-assisted content analysis and apply a unique comparative and holistic approach over time, across different cycles of six conflicts in three regions of the world, and across different types of domestic, international and transnational media. In so doing, it explores the roles of public communication through traditional media, social media, strategic communication, and public relations in informing and involving national and international actors in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-keeping. It provides a key point of reference for creative, innovative, and state-of-the-art empirical research on media and armed conflict.

"Die neuen Raum- und Zeitarrangements der globalen Informationssphäre legen die Frage nahe, auf welchem Terrain die Soziologie als Orientierungswissenschaft heute operiert. Wer vom Cyberspace redet, sollte vom Spätkapitalismus nicht schweigen. Jedenfalls gibt es beachtliche Fortschritte in der Beschreibung unserer Epoche mithilfe spätmarxistischer Kategorien. Manches spricht dafür, die neuen Medien als Ausdruck einer für den Kapitalismus typischen Stufe der erweiterten Reproduktion zu verstehen, welche durch die Konvergenz von Ökonomie und Kultur gekennzeichnet ist. Die mediale Massenkultur vermag heute unmittelbar in den ökonomischen Prozeß einzugreifen. Die neuen Medien als die Handlungs-Struktur des spätkapitalistischen Raum- und Zeitarrangements sind ein wichtiges Operationsfeld der Soziologie bei ihrem Bemühen um ein cognitive mapping dieser Welt. In den neuen Medien konvergieren Massenunterhaltungs- und Computertechnologien, die bestimmte Aspekte des reflexiven und logischen Denkens in ihren Apparaten gleichsam verdrahtet und damit 'automatisiert' haben. Insofern entwickeln sich die neuen Medien zu hermeneutischen Maschinen der soziologischen Imagination - und zwar in einer unendlich effektiveren Weise, als es Systemtheorien der autopoietischen Variante jemals für sich beanspruchen könnten. Dies ist die neue erkenntnistheoretische Situation, in welcher für die Soziologie auch orientierungsästhetische Fragen (Stichwort: 'Der Film des Soziologen') auftauchen. Daneben wird der Einfallsreichtum der Soziologie durch die private problems und public issues der informationsgesellschaftlichen Dynamik des Kapitalismus herausgefordert. Umwälzungen in den geistigen Macht- und Eigentumsverhältnissen auf den Netzen und in den Massenmedien lösen unter anderem Fragen nach der Rolle der herrschenden Klassen im ökonomischen und politischen Prozeß aus. Wo, beispielsweise, gibt es heute eine Soziologie der Finanz- und Spekulationseliten, die an das verschwörungstheoretische Niveau mancher unserer soziologischen Klassiker anknüpfte? Und könnte sie noch 'geschrieben' - oder müßte sie 'gefilmt' werden? " (Autorenreferat)

Abstract

Purpose
The goal of this paper is to examine the usage of information technologies and media in two European case studies – Berlin and Warsaw. Findings from the research can be used to create urban policies and media infrastructure design, based on the different strategies of two European cities. Berlin and Warsaw have taken different paths in implementing the smart city concept, adapting the idea to their economic, historical, and social realities. Media are understood here as human-machine and machine-machine communications, and also in terms of both physical and digital media infrastructure.


Methodology
The research aims at examining strategies and institutions (both private and public) in light of the practical implementation of smart solutions by City Hall authorities. The study combines analysis of grey literature (news reports, corporate strategies, City Hall documentation) with qualitative research: 30 semi-structured interviews conducted with local municipalities and city planners in both cities.


Findings
Findings are likely to provide evidence potential drivers and barriers to the implementation of smart city solutions. The results provide evidence that media and information technologies in the city are implemented due to the data policies of entities that usually implement smart city strategy independently. The task of city authorities is to guarantee access to basic infrastructure, which is the basis for creating other solutions by private entities.


Practical implications
The empirical research is likely to provide evidence that Berlin and Warsaw have not yet fully appreciated the solutions based on communication between machines, but there is increasing use of 'ad hoc' solutions.


Social implications
This study may be used as a source of information for smart city managers, media infrastructure, and urban strategy with a focus on residents and information and communication technologies. Findings are addressed to media and urban experts and scholars, as well as sociologists, political scientists, engineers, ICT specialists, policy-makers, city managers and citizens.


Value
The study shows the growing importance of mobile devices, media-like services and ICT have resulted in changes in City Hall's development strategies and new theoretical approaches through which the cities might be analysed. This study finds that networks, platforms and media infrastructure have been used to describe new ways of communication between city authorities, citizens and machines. It has been argued that fostering an advanced media infrastructure (soft and hard) has the potential to create "The Future City".

This article begins with discussions about organizational communication, especially in the context of social media. Research in this field tends to emphasize "visibility" as the only desire of organizations in online environments. However, "strategies of invisibility" are also paths adopted by organizations in situations of risk or in the face of the apparent advance of guidelines that contradict the way they expect to be recognized. Our aim is to understand the strategies of organizations in situations requiring invisibility and reducing/targeting visibility on social media. The discussions refer to symbolic interactionism, which is the epistemic foundation of this research. On an empirical level, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 professionals working in digital communication agencies. The results form a map of strategies for invisibility and reducing/targeting visibility, which indicates the professionalization and several consequences of these processes and resources. Our understanding is that such strategies need discussion in the light of notions of public interest, conformity, and ethics, as the prospect of concealment may represent the non-visibility of issues relevant to society that are losing emphasis, given the refinement of these processes and resources.

Changes in organizational structures, logics and employment practices in the media industries – critically the outsourcing of labour, whereby employees become freelance workers – supply an ideal context in which to explore the extent to which, and the ways in which, ideological and structural pressures encourage workers to accept the logic and imperatives of enterprise. An important and influential body of literature identifies the 'enterprising self ' as a central paradigmatic concept underpinning the rationale of new, alternative, work forms and relationships. And enterprising forms or logics of organization, or of organizational employment practices and relationships are closely associated with management pressures on workers (contract freelance workers or permanent employees) to accept enterprise as a major element of their self-identities.This study of media workers contributes to the debate about the 'enterprising self '. Many writers have noted that workers in the enterprise economy are exposed to systemic efforts to see themselves in terms of enterprise. But relatively little work has explored how workers respond to these efforts.The findings of this study reveal the various ways in which freelance workers make sense of enterprise and how they understand themselves, and their employment experiences in terms of enterprise.

This review essay focuses on the American Sociological Association (ASA) Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change final report, Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. We take the report as a jumping off point to provide an overview of research on climate change in the media sphere and in the political sphere. The political sphere and the media sphere are key sites for the politics of climate change, where the meaning of the causes and consequences of climate change, as well as policy responses for mitigation and adaptation, are contested and negotiated among policy makers, corporate interests, environmental scientists, environmental movements and counter-movements. While there are substantial bodies of research on climate change within both the political and media spheres, less research specifically addresses how the social dynamics of one of these spheres shapes social interaction in the other sphere. Insights into the relationships between these spheres are suggested by the ASA Task Force report, but this area is under examined in current research. As such, we argue that there is a need for more research that bridges policy-oriented and media-oriented perspectives on climate change. ; Peer reviewed